Frankie left the path and pushed her way through the trees. The scratches on her back ached and the new bruise on her shin throbbed. She could hear things moving in the undergrowth and something else shifting in the branches above, and she increased her pace as much as she could, holding on to trees as she passed them, twisting her body this way and that, using the torch to illuminate the ground beneath her feet. Her phone was on 2 per cent now. She needed to reach the town before the battery died completely, and the wind chimes were loud. She was certain the town was on the other side of this patch.
Suddenly, there were no more trees ahead of her. She was in a clearing, one she hadn’t seen before. Like a drowning swimmer with just a lungful of air left, she struck out for safety, a final push, running across the long grass, a circle of black trees all around her. She was sure Penance had to be just beyond the trees on the far side of this clearing.
Someone stepped out of the trees to her left.
She couldn’t even scream. She stopped and turned. Her phone dropped from her grasp and she was so terrified she didn’t stop to pick it up. In the clearing, the sliver of a moon provided just enough light for her to see.
Enough light for her to see two more figures standing before her.
Two ahead. One behind. They stood still and silent, watching her. And between the gulps of panic, the fear that flooded and threatened to shut down her system, she realised she couldn’t see their faces.
They weren’t human.
A scream ripped out of her and she ran, leaving her phone behind in the grass, running towards the trees and the woods, not thinking, not making any kind of rational decision. The figures – the inhuman figures – didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. They watched her.
She stopped at the tree line. There was a new voice yelling inside her head, telling her not to go back into the woods. Not without a torch. She felt hot tears burning her cheeks. What should she do? What should she do? She wanted her mum, her dad, someone, anyone. She wished they’d never come here, wished she’d never met Ryan, wished wished wished she hadn’t fallen out with him. This was her punishment. These things, these creatures, were going to catch her, kill her, just like those teachers.
She gave up.
Turned back towards them, ready to accept her fate. Unable to run any more.
She opened her dry mouth to speak.
And a hand clamped down on her shoulder.
PART TWO
Chapter 19
The day after Abigail’s funeral, on a spring morning in 1999, the three of them gathered at the spot by the lake where Crow had first met the others. They hadn’t arranged it; it just felt like the right thing to do. Crow had worried, in the lead-up to Abigail’s death, that without their leader the group would break apart, but her final words to them – the last time they saw her before she was admitted, against her will, to the hospital – had quelled those fears.
‘The three of you,’ she had said, ‘you need to stick together.’ Her voice had been weak but the humour, the wisdom, never left her eyes. ‘Only you understand this place.’ She looked at each of them in turn. ‘You have to remember what I’ve taught you. Will you do that?’
They all nodded.
‘This is a sacred place. Our sacred place. We—’
At that very moment, there came a noise in the trees. The sound of laughter, of teenage voices, and then the distinct smell of cigarettes. Kids from the campground. Abigail sighed but Crow’s stomach clenched with anger, and he charged towards the line of trees to confront them, Goat and Fox backing him up, just as one of the kids crushed out a cigarette underfoot.
‘Hey. Assholes. Pick that up.’
A fight almost broke out and Goat held Crow back, Crow’s fists clenching and unclenching, the hatred hot in his veins. He yelled after the campground kids as they retreated, and it felt good to see the fear on their faces.
‘That’s right!’ he yelled. ‘Run back to your little campground.’
When they returned to Abigail, she looked weak. Even though they were young and ignorant, they knew she didn’t have long. The sickness had done its work quickly.
‘It’s a full moon tonight,’ she said. She had spoken to them at length about lunar cycles, their importance in nature, how pagans and believers in the old ways scheduled their lives around the moon. ‘A good time to go.’
‘Please, don’t say that.’ Goat had tears in his eyes.
She reached out to cup his face. ‘I’ll always be here,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’ That had been Fox.